1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an exercise monitoring device and an exercise monitoring method, both of which monitor whether or not aerobic exercise is being performed and notify the result to a user practicing exercise, and relates to an exercise monitoring program storage medium storing an exercise monitoring program that is executed in a computing device and makes the computing device operate as the exercise monitoring device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various exercise machines have been developed riding a wave of fitness boom in recent years and become familiar to many users. There are many cases where such various kinds of exercise machines are provided with a display device which calculates exercise intensity from a user's pulse rate or the like and outputs the same (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 5-220120, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 6-197892, and Japanese Utility Model Application Publication No. 5-70503). However, known devices obtain the exercise intensity from age, a pulse rate, and the like; and consequently, only inaccurate exercise intensity can be obtained at present. Furthermore, heretofore, there is a device which prompts a user to do aerobic exercise by obtaining whether or not the user is practicing aerobic exercise, or whether or not the exercise is weaker than the aerobic exercise, or harder than the aerobic exercise from the user's age, weight, pulse rate, and the like. However, since such data is based on originally incorrectly obtained exercise intensity, it is not correctly obtained whether or not the aerobic exercise suitable for the user is done; therefore, the user adjusts the exercise intensity on the basis of inaccurate information at present.
On the other hand, in recent years, guidance for exercise is disclosed in http: //www.mhlw.go.jp/bunya/kenkou/undou01/pdf/data.pdf) from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. Furthermore, in http://www.mizuno.co.jp/card/report/no007/no7—2.html and http://www.health-net.or.jp/kenkozukuri/healthnews/030/010/c7003/index.html, relation between aerobic exercise and the maximum heart rate reserve is shown. Further, in http://www.hc.keio.ac.jp/sports/ronbun/99kiyo/kojin/01yamam oto.pdf, definition of metabolic equivalents (referred to as METs) proposed by the American College of Sports Medicine is disclosed.